Why are people opting for FUSION drives over full SSD on upcoming iMacs?

[phoenixsan]

I think....

principal motive holding out the full SSD experience is price. Maybe in 2-5 years prices drop enough. The writing7reading can be corrected in TRIM enabled SSDs, I think.

 

[iamgalactic]

This would also give you plenty of space to put your Windows partition on the SSD if desired for speed, which a 128GB wouldn't permit.

file placement on FD is transparent to user - there's no control over what files go where

also, we don't know how big the SSD in 3TB version will be yet (that I'm aware of)

 

[Oracle1729]

Besides cost -- and maybe it's purely a financial decision -- what do most of you see as the advantage of going Fusion over a full SSD drive?

Wouldn't you want the ability to have more SSD space available for all the software you will put on your computer for the next few years?

Perhaps I'm missing out on something due to my lack of knowledge about SSD drives. I have heard something about them slowing down over time when constantly writing/rewriting to them.

There really is no reason at all to buy a fusion drive. I use an SSD and mechancial drives to get speed and mass storage. Apple claims the idea of fusion is to give you this sort of setup automatically. But nobody who cares about performance will be comfortable with that and the rest of the people won't care about fusion except the marketing hype.

The pure stupidity is that apple thinks it's okay to give you a single 2.5" drive bay now. In a desktop. So they've screwed over everyone but the bottom end user.

 

[tuccillo]

I understand your point and agree that it would certainly be expensive. You are starting to talk about some serious money for a desktop system.

I wasn't suggesting this for cost savings, but for single-drive file management convenience for those who want a massive SSD main drive and also have huge photo, music, video libraries.

This would also give you plenty of space to put your Windows partition on the SSD if desired for speed, which a 128GB wouldn't permit.

 

[hfg]

file placement on FD is transparent to user - there's no control over what files go where

also, we don't know how big the SSD in 3TB version will be yet (that I'm aware of)

Your Windows partition isn't managed by Fusion, it is determined by a hard partition.


Yeah ... I haven't seen anything regarding a Fusion drive with other SSD drive sizes mentioned. I also haven't seen any indication that a BTO order would be able to select a SSD size and select a hard disk size ... regardless of whether it was factory configured as Fusion or not. Hopefully soon....

 

[forty2j]

file placement on FD is transparent to user - there's no control over what files go where

also, we don't know how big the SSD in 3TB version will be yet (that I'm aware of)

They've already said it's 128GB SSD for both Fusion drives.

Also, in Bootcamp (on the 1TB Fusion, since it won't work at all on 3GB yet), you won't have access to the SSD at all. You'll just have a partition on the HDD. Fusion is managed by OS X. I'm thinking it might actually be faster to use Parallels with Fusion help than to Bootcamp; I plan to try it out.

 

[hfg]

I understand your point and agree that it would certainly be expensive. You are starting to talk about some serious money for a desktop system.

I am looking at the new iMac as a potential replacement for my aging Mac Pro which is pretty much loaded with 4 SSD drives and 2 large hard disks. So I am expecting it to be serious money, but I expect the new Mac Pro to be even more so.

 

[zen]

Because you get near-SSD speeds but HDD capacity for a price somewhere in between the two.

Pretty obvious, I would have thought.

 

[forty2j]

There really is no reason at all to buy a fusion drive. I use an SSD and mechancial drives to get speed and mass storage. Apple claims the idea of fusion is to give you this sort of setup automatically. But nobody who cares about performance will be comfortable with that and the rest of the people won't care about fusion except the marketing hype.

Listen, I'll PM you my address, and you can send me a check for the $1000 price difference between 1TB Fusion and 768GB SSD. Sound good?

 

[hfg]

They've already said it's 128GB SSD for both Fusion drives.

Also, in Bootcamp (on the 1TB Fusion, since it won't work at all on 3GB yet), you won't have access to the SSD at all. You'll just have a partition on the HDD. Fusion is managed by OS X. I'm thinking it might actually be faster to use Parallels with Fusion help than to Bootcamp; I plan to try it out.

Apple Fusion documentation available indicates that this it true for BootCamp Windows partitions created from a Fusion system. However, if you create your own "Fusion" drive after you have created a partition for Windows on the SSD (using the partition-ID), it will work fine as well ... you just have to do some of the work yourself.

I am currently running a 2011 Mac Mini that way ... a 256GB SSD with Windows7 and the SSD portion of Fusion, and a 750 GB hard drive as the other portion of the Fusion logical drive. It works great!

 

[tuccillo]

Look, it is a relatively inexpensive automatic "I/O accelerator" that is transparent to the user. Given that the vast majority of iMac users don't have a clue how a computer works this makes perfect sense. Virtually all of the "real computers" in the world use some sort of automatic hierarchical storage systems. Transparency has advantages for the majority of users.

The iMac makes a number of compromises - it can't be everything to everyone. If you are unhappy with the tradeoffs in the design then you are a candidate for a MacPro. If you were truly looking for performance you would be using a unix server with the server version of SandyBridge(E5-2690), PCI based SSDs, and RAID disk devices ;-)

There really is no reason at all to buy a fusion drive. I use an SSD and mechancial drives to get speed and mass storage. Apple claims the idea of fusion is to give you this sort of setup automatically. But nobody who cares about performance will be comfortable with that and the rest of the people won't care about fusion except the marketing hype.

The pure stupidity is that apple thinks it's okay to give you a single 2.5" drive bay now. In a desktop. So they've screwed over everyone but the bottom end user.

 

[Oracle1729]

Listen, I'll PM you my address, and you can send me a check for the $1000 price difference between 1TB Fusion and 768GB SSD. Sound good?

First, what do you have that requires 768gig on an SSD? Pictures, movies, itunes crap, data files, etc all go on the mechanical drive.

Second, that's what fusion effectively does if it works properly.

Third, if you even think a 1TB fusion drive is comparable to a SSD it's because you don't understand the first point.

Forth, once you get out of your apple-worshiping delusions, SSD is cheap. $1000 difference from their over-priced fusion to their over-priced SSD? Wow you'd have to be an idiot to pay that. An Agility 3 512gig is $300 now. If 512 isn't enough take 2 and format for a single logical volume, and you'll get even faster performance.

 

[iamgalactic]

First, what do you have that requires 768gig on an SSD? Pictures, movies, itunes crap, data files, etc all go on the mechanical drive.

I want more than 128gb SSD. Apple is giving me the option of Fusion with their software mangled 128gb SSD or 768gb pure SSD. I'd be happy with a 256gb SSD option and keep other stuff on an external.

If you want JUST SSD, it has to be stupidly overpriced 768GB - and nobodies arguing that it's not.

 

[hfg]

There really is no reason at all to buy a fusion drive. I use an SSD and mechancial drives to get speed and mass storage. Apple claims the idea of fusion is to give you this sort of setup automatically. But nobody who cares about performance will be comfortable with that and the rest of the people won't care about fusion except the marketing hype.

The pure stupidity is that apple thinks it's okay to give you a single 2.5" drive bay now. In a desktop. So they've screwed over everyone but the bottom end user.

You are not buying a "Fusion drive" (as in special hardware), you are buying a 2 drive system with an additional small SSD and a hard drive. The Fusion functionality is software, already in everyones OS X, and is preconfigured by Apple when the computer is made.

You could take your existing system of SSD and hard disks and join them into "Fusion" functionality yourself right now if you desired. You would no longer have to decide what file trees to put on which drive, the fusion management would do it for you, and at a much lower granularity than you would do manually. Accessing files on the fusion portion of the SSD is just as fast as access from a separate SSD ... and the same is true for files on the hard disk.

I am sure you have many files on your dedicated SSD which you seldom, or never, use which are just sitting there because it isn't worth your time to move them and symlink to the hard disk. And the same is true of some files you keep on your hard disk which individually would be better on your SSD while you are working with them, then return to the hard disk when done with them.

 

[uptownnyc]

I'm going to look at the price options whenever they're available and decide between either straight SSD, or the 1TB Fusion drive. I want the option of using Bootcamp, so the 3TB isn't an option ... but if I find I need the space, I'll mount an external drive for my oversized media content over Thunderbolt or USB3.

Really hard to say what the best choice is without knowing pricing.

 

[forty2j]

First, what do you have that requires 768gig on an SSD? Pictures, movies, itunes crap, data files, etc all go on the mechanical drive.

Second, that's what fusion effectively does if it works properly.

Third, if you even think a 1TB fusion drive is comparable to a SSD it's because you don't understand the first point.

Forth, once you get out of your apple-worshiping delusions, SSD is cheap. $1000 difference from their over-priced fusion to their over-priced SSD? Wow you'd have to be an idiot to pay that. An Agility 3 512gig is $300 now. If 512 isn't enough take 2 and format for a single logical volume, and you'll get even faster performance.

You seem to be making an assumption that I want to take apart my computer and customize it. If I did, I wouldn't be buying an All-in-one to begin with. We don't know how hard it is to get into a 2012 iMac; I'm guessing a heat gun is involved and it will be an altogether miserable experience.

The prices you're finding on SSDs may not even be applicable to iMacs since they seem to be using the flash daughterboards they use on MBAs & rMBPs. Could you swap out the spinner for a standard SSD, once you got inside? Maybe. Might run into the same "stuck fan" issues on earlier models, and it might or might not have an easy fix.

And yes, I believe Fusion performance will be comparable to pure SSD on everyday use. That doesn't mean it will be exactly the same speed.. just close enough to compare. For someone who just wants their system to work much faster than it would otherwise, Fusion is certainly "good enough", and the $1000 difference is certainly a reason to buy it.

My total data usage is about 160GB. It will go up from there, but I'm not going to be filling any drives. If we start with the assumption that I want an iMac, I don't want to open it, and I want my OS and Applications to run at SSD speeds, why wouldn't I get Fusion?

 

[tuccillo]

I assume $250 for fusion setup with 128 GB SSD based on Mac mini prices.

I'm going to look at the price options whenever they're available and decide between either straight SSD, or the 1TB Fusion drive. I want the option of using Bootcamp, so the 3TB isn't an option ... but if I find I need the space, I'll mount an external drive for my oversized media content over Thunderbolt or USB3.

Really hard to say what the best choice is without knowing pricing.

 

[akatsuki]

So can you set up your own fusion and install an SSD yourself in an iMac - will it ruin your warranty?

These are the real questions I want answered since I would rather get a 256gb ssd for the price rather than a 128gb...

 

[MattZani]

Little to none disadvantage, well that's a bit of wishful thinking. The disadvantages are huge.
1. All tests so far shows that it has nearly as good performance, but this is only because it has been tested on new machines with empty hdd's. so the ssd is doing all the work. We haven't really seen the fusion tech in the works yet which would obviously slow it down.
2. You have two disks to worry about one regular hdd and one ssd, whichever breaks first will take down the other. So chances of a faulty hdd is suddenly doubled.... So make sure to keep a backup!

Anyone who doesn't keep a backup when external storage is so cheap is a fool.

Fusion always keeps 4Gb of space free on the SSD, so writes will always be fast enough. Admittedly could be a 128Gb bit small for all your regularly accessed items, which is why I'm fitting a 256Gb and DIYing it.

 

[RPhoto]

I don't fully understand how it will work in my case. I get that Fusion moves the most used files to the SSD, but here's my problem...

I have a LOT of photo's in my archive and I add to that on a regular basis. Files are from 16 and 36mp camera's so I can copy anywhere from 2 or 3 gigs to 16gig+ of data from the camera at a time. When I edit my photos, I don't necessarily edit the most recent photos or photo shoot but quite often dip in and out of older images.

a) The Fusion drive will never be able to work out what photos I'm going to edit and when, so all but the most recently taken will end up in the HDD and never move out?

or

b) Does Fusion automatically move ANY file you open across to the SSD so you are working on it from there. In which case, with a large file would there be an increased time for it to open as it copies across from one drive to the other before it opens?

I'm a little worried that with a huge library of images that are worked on at random quite often, depending on how Fusion works I may rarely get the benefit of the SSD?!

I really don't like that my only other option is a huge and costly large SSD but if that's the only way I know I'll be able to edit all of my images on a fast drive I may have to take the plunge

 

[xgman]

These fusion drives would be more attractive to me if they started at 256gb. I found these articles of interest on the subject:

http://macperformanceguide.com/index.html

 

[Shivetya]

It is cheaper, you get more storage space, and there is little to no disadvantage.

Primary disadvantage and its a big one in my book, you cannot prioritize what content is on the SSD over the HDD.

I don't want everything to magically migrate to the SSD. Near static data has no place on my SSD; movies and music are two items that have no need there. Now a scratch space for some manipulation of pics/music/movies is what I would love the SSD speed for.

Guess what, if you routinely dealing with over 100g of data on your system your most likely going to be watching your system shuffle - A LOT.

So, give us the ability to decide what can and cannot occupy the SSD and Fusion is great, otherwise its good for people who don't really use their computers.

 

[Razorhog]

I don't fully understand how it will work in my case. I get that Fusion moves the most used files to the SSD, but here's my problem...

I have a LOT of photo's in my archive and I add to that on a regular basis. Files are from 16 and 36mp camera's so I can copy anywhere from 2 or 3 gigs to 16gig+ of data from the camera at a time. When I edit my photos, I don't necessarily edit the most recent photos or photo shoot but quite often dip in and out of older images.

a) The Fusion drive will never be able to work out what photos I'm going to edit and when, so all but the most recently taken will end up in the HDD and never move out?

or

b) Does Fusion automatically move ANY file you open across to the SSD so you are working on it from there. In which case, with a large file would there be an increased time for it to open as it copies across from one drive to the other before it opens?

I'm a little worried that with a huge library of images that are worked on at random quite often, depending on how Fusion works I may rarely get the benefit of the SSD?!

I really don't like that my only other option is a huge and costly large SSD but if that's the only way I know I'll be able to edit all of my images on a fast drive I may have to take the plunge

Sounds like you need to spring for the 768GB SSD. Start saving now and even if you don't have the extra by the time they are released, hold fast to your dream and one day you will. My pep talk for the day!

 

[RPhoto]

Sounds like you need to spring for the 768GB SSD. Start saving now and even if you don't have the extra by the time they are released, hold fast to your dream and one day you will. My pep talk for the day!

Money is reluctantly at the ready

A huge shame they've not done a small SSD + HDD option this time round without the Fusion.

 

[NewbieCanada]

They've already said it's 128GB SSD for both Fusion drives.

Also, in Bootcamp (on the 1TB Fusion, since it won't work at all on 3GB yet), you won't have access to the SSD at all. You'll just have a partition on the HDD. Fusion is managed by OS X. I'm thinking it might actually be faster to use Parallels with Fusion help than to Bootcamp; I plan to try it out.

Since your Virtual machine is one big file, I'm thinking it's likely to end up on the HDD side of things.